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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28958316">Things Are Never What They Seem</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clairebear1982/pseuds/Clairebear1982'>Clairebear1982</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Multi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:08:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28958316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clairebear1982/pseuds/Clairebear1982</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The house Harry and his family are about to move in to holds a dark secret. It's not long before things take a sinister turn, and someone ends up dead...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Albus Severus Potter/James Sirius Potter, Harry Potter &amp; Ginny Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>International Wizarding School Competition - Ilvermorny</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Things Are Never What They Seem</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was close to moving day. Their current home was too small for Harry and Ginny Potter. They were living in a small two-bedroom house in London. With Ginny expecting their third child, it was high time they moved.</p><p>If James Sirius and Albus Severus had to share a bedroom for much longer, Harry was almost certain that blood would spill.</p><p>Ginny had taken the boys ahead to investigate the new house. Using the magical transportation ring that Harry had given her, Ginny had given it a turn. The ring was charmed to take her straight home or straight to Saint Mungo's. Hermione had inspired Harry’s gift, as she had created something similar for Ron and the kids. They were great in an emergency and were a brilliant replacement to side-along Apparition with small children.</p><p>Upon their arrival at the new house, James and Albus stopped fighting and looked in awe at their new home. This house was so pretty, and boys both made a huge fuss over the two porthole windows either side of the front door which was bright red with a golden knocker, and the garden was small and neat, with a flower bed. They were separated from the busy road and neighbours by a red brick wall with black metal railings on top of the wall, as well as a black wrought-iron gate.</p><p>Ginny opened the door and let the boys in, smiling as they ran past her like a pair of whirling dervishes. Once inside, they found themselves standing in a long hall with tiled flooring and a wooden staircase on the right. Along each side of the hall were doors to other rooms. James opened the first door on the left and gasped as he entered.</p><p>"This is going to be your playroom, boys. What do you think?" asked Ginny.</p><p>"Great!" James said.</p><p>Albus just smiled widely at his mother.</p><p>"Come on, let's see what other rooms we have down here, shall we?"</p><p>Albus was the first one out of the room and tore across the hall to open the next door. Behind that, they found a room lined with bookshelves.</p><p>"This room is going to be Daddy's study. So when he's working, you'll have to be on your best behaviour." Ginny rolled her eyes to herself. What use was it to tell her little rapscallions that they weren't to fight? It was all they ever did.</p><p>Ginny opened the next door, which was a cupboard. Unimpressed with this, the boys opened the door next to the cupboard and found a downstairs toilet. Albus made a bee-line for the toilet, before Ginny marched them out of the room, closing the door behind her.</p><p>The room directly at the end of the hall turned out to lead to the dining room.</p><p>"This was supposed to be a dining room, but we're going to be using this as our living room. Cosy, right?"</p><p>The boys hardly paid attention; they were too busy running around the room, yelling at the top of their lungs. The sound of their yelling rebounded off of the walls and floor, causing Ginny to wince.</p><p>Ginny opened the door at the end of the dining room, which led to a huge, bright kitchen. The windows and the bi-folding patio doors flooded the entire room in daylight, making it feel warm and welcoming. Ginny opened the doors to let air in and let the kids out. Perhaps if they ran off some energy, she would be able to get some sense out of them when she took them upstairs to see their new bedrooms.</p><p>Suddenly Neville arrived beside Ginny out of nowhere. He too had a transportation ring given to him by Hermione.</p><p>"Hey, Nev." Ginny smiled as she watched her boys playing nicely for once.</p><p>"Hey Gin, I thought I would pop in on my way to Hogwarts and drop these flowers off for you. They’re from Hannah and me as a housewarming present," Neville said as he handed Ginny the big bouquet of dusky pink peonies. It was wrapped in pink tissue paper and cellophane with a big lilac ribbon tying it all together. The smell of the peonies filled the kitchen with their sweet scent.</p><p>"How lovely. Thank you, Neville," Ginny said as she took the bouquet and gave them a sniff.</p><p>Ginny and Neville heard a scream come from the garden. Neville sprinted out of the house and up the garden path. What he found was to find James lying at the bottom of the tree, crying.</p><p>"What happened?" Neville asked as he sat down beside James.</p><p>"I fell out of the tree, Uncle Nev," James said, tears running down his plump, reddened cheeks. "My arm hurts so bad."</p><p>Suspecting a broken arm, Neville gently examined James' arm just to be sure. Neville found a rather large lump and lots of swelling. A shadow fell across them, and Neville looked up at Ginny.</p><p>"He's broken his left arm. He'll need to go to Saint Mungo's. I would try and heal it myself, but I'm not very good at healing charms," Neville said sadly.</p><p>"I never mastered them either," Ginny sighed, chewing her lip nervously. "Can you take Al back to Harry while I take this one to the hospital?"</p><p>"Not a problem, Ginny."</p><p>Ginny gently got James up on his feet. He clung to his mother’s leg and buried his face against her. Ginny gave her ring two turns and transported away. Neville meanwhile conjured up a vase, and half-filled it with water and stood the bouquet inside of it before closing up the patio doors and taking Albus by the hand and turning his gold ring transporting the boy back home to Harry.</p><p>Once Harry had been briefed by Neville on the situation, he twisted the ring on his finger, and he and Albus disappeared.</p><p>Harry and Albus appeared at the Burrow, where Albus was to stay with his grandparents.</p><p>"Molly, do you mind looking after Al for me please?" Harry asked as soon as he arrived at the Burrow.</p><p>"Harry, of course, I can. Where's James?"</p><p>"In Saint Mungo's. Apparently, he fell out of the tree at the new house. Ginny took them there to investigate the house and garden, and it seems they investigated a little more thoroughly than we allowed!" Harry said wryly.</p><p>"Just like his great-uncles," sighed Molly. It wasn't often she mentioned her twin brothers Gideon and Fabian, seeing how Death Eaters had murdered them both in the first wizarding war. "Don't worry, Harry, give James a kiss and a hug from me."</p><p>Harry leant in and kissed his mother-in-law on the cheek. Harry twisted his ring twice, this time so he could transport himself to the hospital to check on James and Ginny.</p><p>When he arrived at Saint Mungo's a Healer led Harry to a small room with a bed, only it was Ginny on the bed and not their son.</p><p>"Ginny?" asked Harry.</p><p>"Our daughter has decided it's time to make an appearance," Ginny said through gritted teeth.</p><p>"Oh, Merlin! Where's James?"</p><p>"With a Healer in the playroom down the hall." Ginny panted, her white-knuckled hands clutching the rail on the bed.</p><p>"Right, I'll take James to the Burrow, and I’ll be right back, okay?" Harry said as he pecked her on the cheek.</p><p>Harry strode from the room, down the hall to the room where a young Healer had kept his son entertained.</p><p>"Oh hello, Mr Potter," said the young male. "I'm Fabian Burke, nice to meet you."</p><p>"Nice to meet you too, Fabian. Thanks for looking after James for us, but I need to get him to his grandparents’ house so I can come back and be with my wife," Harry said urgently.</p><p>"Mr Potter, your son, sustained a broken arm and a minor concussion," said the young Healer quickly.</p><p>"It's fine, and his grandmother will keep an eye on him. She's raised seven children of her own," Harry laughed. "Come along, James time to take you to see your grandparents."</p><p>James scrambled to his feet and hugged his father's leg. Harry used the golden ring — which he was sure would run out of juice after today — to transport his son to the Burrow. He barely took a breath before he went back to the hospital.</p><p>He was out of breath, and his head was spinning as if he had been hanging out in the floo system all day. He found his wife had already given birth to their daughter, a daughter they had already decided to call Lily Luna.</p><p>They had delayed the move due to the early arrival of their daughter.</p><p>This time Harry took his sons to the new house so he could show them their new bedrooms before they moved in on the weekend.</p><p>When they arrived at the house, Harry opened the front door and smiled. He already loved this house. It was big, airy and had plenty of room for his children to grow up in.</p><p>Harry was grateful he could give his children what he didn't have: a loving home, with two parents who adored their children. He was happy he could give them even the small things, like clothes that fit them properly and three square meals a day.</p><p>Coming out of his reverie, Harry took the boys upstairs. The stairs and balustrades were painted white, whilst the tread and handrail had been varnished in a medium brown. At the top of the stairs, the landing turned right, there were five doors, and Harry let go of his son’s hands, and James walked to the door closest to him and opened it. It was a big family bathroom. Albus opened the door opposite and found a medium-sized bedroom, and Harry opened the next door alongside it and found it was a larger sized bedroom. At the bottom of the hall was a huge master bedroom and a smaller bedroom.</p><p>In the master bedroom, there was a door opposite the windows which James opened too forcibly causing it to crash into the wall behind the door. James winced at the noise but continued to investigate what was behind the door. Inside was another stairwell. James being a curious child by nature decided to climb the stairs to see where they would go. The stairs were incredibly steep and seemed to go on forever. But once at the top found a secret room full of dusty pieces of paper, bottles and a desk. James picked up a piece of paper — it was a news story from forty years before. James discarded it and walked over to the high window. It was too high for him to be able to see out of so he climbed on top of the desk to see if he could see anything, but as he climbed it seemed as if the window was getting higher and higher. Disappointed, James climbed off the desk and looked around some more. Underneath an old piece of cloth, James found a trunk, locked with a huge padlock. The boy tried with all his might to pull the padlock open but it wouldn't yield its secrets so easily.</p><p>From down below, he could hear his father calling him. But James just ignored his father and carried on looking around the room at all the different stuff that had been left lying around. James started to wonder why his father hadn't come up to this hidden room, he had, after all, left the door wide open. James felt a cold prickle run down his back, so the boy turned tail and ran back down the stairs into the room below.</p><p>Harry walked back into the master bedroom.</p><p>"James Sirius Potter where did you disappear off too? Look at you, you're covered in dust!"</p><p>James looked guiltily at his hands.</p><p>"Can't you see that door over there?" asked James incredulously.</p><p>Harry turned from looking out of the window that overlooked the street.</p><p>Because he had not been looking for a door, it wasn't visible -- much like the Leaky Cauldron and how the Muggles couldn't see that. But now because his young son had pointed it out, it became all too obviously there.</p><p>"Stay here," Harry commanded.</p><p>When Harry returned from the secret room, he looked a little disconcerted. Harry cleared his throat and spoke.</p><p>"This room will be mummy and daddy's room. James, which room do you want?"</p><p>James just stared at his father. He had so many questions about the room and what he was going to do about it. Harry sensed the boy had questions.</p><p>"What do you want to ask me, James?" Harry grinned.</p><p>"What are you going to do with that room? Can we keep it a secret?" James asked as the words tumbled from his small lips.</p><p>"We will keep it a secret for now, but if it becomes a danger then we will have to call in the Ministry to help me investigate exactly what is going on in that room. Do you understand?"</p><p>James nodded enthusiastically. Remembering that his father had asked him which room he wanted James ran from the room to the medium-sized bedroom, which surprised Harry, and he truly thought his eldest son would take the other bigger bedroom.</p><p>"I want this room!"</p><p>That left Albus.</p><p>"Al, which bedroom would you like?"</p><p>Albus just stood there bottom lip trembling, and tears cascaded down his small face.</p><p>"Al, what's wrong?"</p><p>"Daddy,” he said, “I don't want a new bedroom. I want my bedroom."</p><p>Harry knelt before his youngest son and hugged him. "I know moving can be scary, but it can be an adventure too. You're going to have lots of room to play now, and we have a lovely big garden which means we can now have a trampoline," Harry said with a smile.</p><p>"Oh, Dad, do you mean it?" asked James who had just come bouncing back into the room that Harry and Ginny were to share. He grinned, his hands clasped together, as though he feared his dad might just take it back.</p><p>"Yes, I do. How do you feel about having a trampoline buddy?"</p><p>Albus gave a small watery smile. Finally, he chose the smaller room, leaving the larger of the remaining bedrooms for his sister, Lily Luna.</p><p>-----<br/>The family had been living in the house for six months, which meant Harry and James had had plenty of time to investigate the room more. Harry had opened the trunk that James had found. It was after that they started hearing scratching coming from the ceilings upstairs.</p><p>Harry prayed that a bird had managed to get in under the eaves and that it wasn't a ghoul had decided to move in.</p><p>"Time to investigate, I suppose," Harry said as he pulled the loft hatch open.</p><p>A small ladder slid down, and once Harry started to climb, Ginny stood at the bottom of the ladder holding it. The loft had a light which was now not working. Harry pulled out his wand and muttered, “Lumos.”</p><p>Unfortunately for Harry and his family, it turned out to be a vengeful spirit, and a nasty one at that.</p><p>Harry called in the Spirit Division of the Ministry to see if they could get any answers.</p><p>Harry and his family were sat in the kitchen when they heard a scream.</p><p>Harry leapt from his chair and ran out of the room, James and Albus on his heels. When they got upstairs they found one of the Ministry workers dead on the landing.</p><p>Both boys whimpered in fright.</p><p>"Go downstairs, NOW!"</p><p>But it was too late. The spirit grabbed James and dragged him down the hall into the master bedroom. Harry knew exactly where it was taking his son. Harry sprinted after his son, through the door and up the stairs. This was where he found his son unconscious and face down.</p><p>"James?"</p><p>The boy didn't respond.</p><p>"How dare you and that brat trespass on my sanctuary," hissed the spirit.</p><p>"We were only investigating to see what was going on up here. We didn't mean to trespass, or interfere," Harry said trying to placate the spirit.</p><p>"Too late."</p><p>Siripiously Harry pulled out his wand and pointed it at the spirit.</p><p>He managed to bind the spirit long enough for him and James to escape and so the other Ministry workers could go up and trap the spirit and figure out what it is it wanted exactly.</p><p>Apparently, the spirit had become trapped in the secret room twenty-five years ago -- it was originally a hideout from the Death Eaters, but in the end, his wife had turned against him, murdered him and hidden his body in the trunk. They said that the wife would be arrested and brought to trial for the murder.</p><p>Of course, it had been all over the Daily Prophet, which caused a bit of a ruckus, and annoyed Ginny so much that she insisted that they move again, that they couldn't stay here. Plus James wasn't in a good way and refused to stay in the house — but who could blame him?</p><p>Once they moved out the Ministry decided to knock the house down as it would always be a place of morbid curiosity.</p><p>Harry swore to make sure nothing like that happened again.</p>
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